London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

Media regulator Ofcom is backing a plan by ITV to make deep cuts in its regional news output in exchange for offering more localised bulletins across England.

Under the proposed terms of its new 10-year broadcasting licence, ITV will be allowed to reduce its regional output, which is mainly news, by 31% to 165 minutes a week.

In London, that means the six-and-a-half minute lunchtime bulletin will be cut to three minutes and the half-hour London Tonight show will need to contain only 20 minutes of regional news.

To compensate, ITV is promising to increase its number of broadcast regions from seven to 14.

The move from ITV, which is poised to report strong annual profits next week, comes as a new generation of local TV channels, such as the new London station being developed by the Evening Standard, prepare to launch.

Ofcom is now consulting on the changes as it prepares to issue new licences beginning in 2015.

The regulator said: “We consider it likely that viewers would prefer the restoration of more local services, and that this may be a better trade-off than retaining the status quo.

“While viewers might well prefer to retain a full 30 minutes of local news in early evening bulletins, we do not consider that it is likely to be affordable over the term of the next licence period.”

An ITV spokesman today said: “ITV believes these proposals will offer a better, more sustainable service, catering to audience needs.”